Читать книгу Scholar Gispies - John Buchan - Страница 8

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The hall clock has scarce struck the hour of one when we tramp over the lawn through the thin, fleeting darkness. The earth is buried in shadow, but the sky- above is lightening, and in the open spaces a sort of ghostly dusk prevails. The air is sharp, for there is a point of east in the wind, and at this hour in the towns on the east seaboard there will be a haar, chill and oppressive. But here there is midsummer weather, which will yield in two days' time to the grey desolation of a windy June. A bat flutters about, and as we strike the road a black shape glides into the hedge, which may be a weasel. Four miles of walking are before us ere we reach the bend of Tweed from which we would fish homewards. The slowly growing dawn comes flitting through the branches, revealing kine in the meadows and sheep on the hilly pasture, and now and then glimmer of water or a sleeping cottage. Through thick woods and between straight hedges and over a ridge of stiff moorland we go, till at length we come to the little wicket whence runs the by-path to the river.

It is still dusky, though the sun has now risen, and the bank on the other side is hazy. The waters are grey as glass, with little films of fog rising from the surface. We choose the smallest and reddest of brandlings, fixed on the nicest of hooks dressed on the finest of gut. We can only cast by faith, for the eye cannot see where the line meets the water, or mark its downward progress. But this is the feeding time of the fish, and in two casts there is a dead pull on the line, and a fish sulks at the bottom. From this we infer that he is no trout, for such churlish conduct is unworthy of that delicate creature. Sure enough in ten minutes' time there comes tumbling on the shingle a stranger grayling, a pound and a half in weight, by the god of fishermen. For in these latter days some of the family have found their way into the Tweed, and work havoc among the little troutlings and break the fine gut of unsuspecting anglers.

So master grayling finds his place in the basket, and as the light on the water is now clearer the May-fly box is produced, and an elegant winged creature succeeds the sorely battered worm. Now is the time for sport, and as the thin rod bends to each throw, and the plash and gurgle of great trout rising strike on our ears, we swear that the world is a good one and life well worth living. But, alas, for the rarity of consistency, for in a trice we hook a trout, a violent half-pound fellow, and by gross stupidity our line fouls the branch of a tree and breaks short. Then we call down the vengeance of heaven on fish and rivers, and mournfully decide that the time is out of joint.

But soon we are successful, and with a little eddy our fly is sucked under, and another trout is hooked. This time we are less foolish, for with all the art we know we strive to keep him from the perils of reeds and dipping boughs, and guide his errant course to the kindly gravel. A little struggle, a moment of breathless anxiety, and there lies on the grass a well-bred yellow trout, scarlet-spotted, shapely, and shining like polished mail. Our hearts are cheered, and we fall to fishing warily, circumspectly, eyeing every likely nook, every hole and current, and casting as if our lives depended on the fly alighting like a stray petal of hawthorn. Soon we have secured another and yet another, and another again, till the open water is past, and the entanglements of wood and shrub begin.

It is a charming morning, fresh, clear as crystal, and bright as only June can make it. Birds are twittering all round. The dipper is already flashing up stream, the moorhen is darting below her friendly bank, and the solemn heron is fishing up at yonder pool. On the other side is a crow-wood, and in the ceaseless caw-caw our guilty ears seem to discern a note of reproach. For was it not we who scarce a fortnight agone thinned their numbers with rook rifles? An old kestrel sails over the fir trees, stops, and hovers for a second as if about to dart to the ground. It may have been some little rabbit or feeble mouse which she saw. But whatever it was, the prey has gone under cover, for in another second she continues her way right across the valley to the rougher moorlands.

The choicest of the meadow flowers, the typical colours of Tweedside, blue and yellow, are seen plentifully in the germander and the crow-foot, the tormentil and the milk-wort. But the meadow-sweet and the great yellow irises are still in bud. So also the heath which covers yon knoll among the firs. Yet the hawthorn is flinging its showers of snow on the grass, blossom covers the sloe like a garment, and the lilac and laburnum from the keeper's garden make the air fragrant. Underfoot the little bugle and lady's mantle, the dainty cuckoo flower, the stately water aven, and the great flare of marsh marigolds make the fields a mosaic of colours. All the delightsome sounds of an early summer morning fall on the ear. The cocks are beginning to crow from the farm towns; the water lapses to a pleasant tune; and in the pastures the cow bells tinkle as their wearers break their fast. Here in a country of woods the farmers string little bells around the necks of their property so that they may trace their whereabouts by the sound. All the world is gay and throbbing with new life, as if the angel of the dawn had poured fresh vigour on all nature at her advent. The day will be very hot, but at this hour it is cool as an October afternoon, and the distances are clear for many miles.

Fishermen! Whatever lie-abeds may say of their craft they can afford to smile. For it takes them out to the greenest spots on God's earth at the time when man, spite of an absurd custom of civilisation, should be most active. It shows him much of the ways of bird and beast and flower, and if he be not the better for every minute he spends in its practice, then I take it there is something radically unwholesome in his whole nature. The man who fishes Tweed with the May-fly of a morning in June has the cream of the sport, and it is an experience which he will never forget. I have heard the tale of one who in his youth had dwelt by the Border stream, and had fished every pool and stream from Melrose to the Crook. Fate, with her accustomed hardness, decreed that his life should be passed in the East amid stress of business and swelter of weather. Fever took him, and in his last illness his native attendants were surprised to see their master making knots with his fingers, carefully holding something in his teeth, and swinging his arm as if he held a rod. He, poor fellow, was far away from the dust and heat, back once more in Tweeddale, tying flies, testing gut, and casting over the clear water as in the May mornings long since gone.

But here we are at the further end of the tanglewood, where is the great pool from which many a goodly salmon is taken in the season. Here lives a great trout which has enjoyed a mild fame for some months, and which may weigh anything from two to seven pounds. He is feeding by the alders on the other bank, and even as we look we see a luckless fly sucked in by his lantern jaws. It is useless to try for him, so we pass by on the other side, quoting to ourselves the song of the contented man:

For if he be not for me,

What care I for whom he be?

But if the gigantic fish be not ours, the well-fed mediocrities are, for soon we have added another brace of ruddy trout to our basket. Afterward they, as the mermaid said of Lorntie, will "skirl in the pan"—not cooked to the fantastic receipt of Master Charles Cotton, but with good butter and oatmeal—a dish fit for the severest gourmand among the gods.

What is the charm of May-fly fishing above all others? Imprimis, the trout, the big trout, love it especially and take it greedily. Item,it is a clean bait, easily handled, pleasant to use, and demanding much skill in the presentation. Item, it comes at the very sweet o' the year, when the heart of nature bursts into song, and morning, noon, and night are one substantial Elysium. One can fish with it in clear water, when all other lures, save that of the small worm, are worse than useless. And, truly, one fish out of the pellucid pool is, to the mind of the writer, better than five out of a turbid, muddy torrent. It is free from any taint of amateurishness, for though the novice may land a big fish with a lob-worm, from a swollen stream, only one who has been much at the trade can hope to succeed with this. There is but one flaw in the gem, or, to adapt a more suitable metaphor, but one fly in the ointment—it comes at a time, as Mr. Lang pathetically complains, when school, college, or stern business holds the human race in its unwelcome toils.

But we are all but home again; and not all the pipes that man ever smoked can allay the yearning for breakfast. So be it now. We cross the stream by the old wooden bridge and are soon out of the paradise of blossom and wildwood into the trim walks of a garden. "Gather ye roses while ye may," says the song. The Mayfly comes but once a year, and tarries only a little while among us. Gather it while ye may, and may the great fish of the pools be like-minded!